Adapt or die

Published:13:12Wednesday 06 April 2011

EDITOR – To some readers what I’m about to say may, if not seeming rather strange, give the impression I’ve left the boat while sailing mid-Atlantic to try to swim the rest of the journey in the belief it will save me half the cost of the fair.

Concerning the headline on the front page of the Market Rasen Mail, March 23: CUTBACKS HIT TOWN CHURCH, which will leave Market Rasen without a vicar when the Rev Michael Cartwright retires.

Though Mr Cartwright may speak in terms of a healthy parish, these figures, I’m afraid, are far from a distant time ago when a flock was a flock and not, as we see today, a ‘dwindling flock’.

I cannot help but see our churches staying in the past, thinking of glory days long gone. The list is endless as to what one may do to bring the ‘flock’ back through the church doors, because while today there are still places of living commitment to God, with worship and adoration of him, places of prayer, forgiveness and reconciliation, where God’s sacraments reach out to each and every one of us, there will come a time when those church doors will close and never to be opened again.